


Sound of Your Heart

by tracinginthesand



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Begging, Blood, Daddy Kink, Desperation, Flashbacks, I swear, It just happened, Kayfabe Compliant, Kink, M/M, Post-Battleground, Post-Draft, Roman is stoic, Seth Has Issues, The Bromestic Partnership is Real, Wrestling, but underneath, sex and feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/pseuds/tracinginthesand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman doesn't want to forget. Dean can't forgive. Seth is a mess. Finn just got here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Were My Courage

**Author's Note:**

> I've been threatening to do this for so long, and now, here I am! Here's my love letter to the WWE and the eroticism contained therein. 
> 
> I'm not going to include real-life backstage gossip or names. These characters are characters, if you know what I mean.

The night after Battleground, 2016:

They cross the country so often it could be July in Minnesota or February in Florida and Roman wouldn't know the difference. It's hard to keep track of what month it is, never mind the year. So he isn't surprised when he climbs onto the tour bus at the end of the night after Battleground and sees Seth on the couch, playing Burnout: Paradise with the New Day. For just a second he starts to smile. Seth, Xbox controller permanently molded to his hand, sitting up on the back of the couch, foreams braced on his thighs. Jostling, talking shit, cackling his head off. 

He turns it into a flat grimace when the guys see him and go quiet. He grabs a towel from the stack by the door and holds it to his bleeding nose, waving them off. Save it for the ring, that's the unofficial motto of their organization. Doesn't mean he wants to be around the guy, but since Management is putting them on the same bus, he knows what's expected. Stay quiet, and build up aggression for the ring. The games that go on behind the scenes are enough to make him miss the NFL, that paragon of human resources management.

Seth's laugh follows him back to the bunks. Roman missed that sound. Missed knowing it was going on somewhere, while Seth was out recovering from the knee injury. The whole roster suffered while he was gone. Or maybe that was just Roman, seeing ghosts everywhere. At the end of Extreme Rules Roman lay there in the middle of the ring, humiliated and panting, shocked, head spinning, but he wanted to smile. Dean snarled about it after, but Roman was just happy Seth was back. Back, and touching him. 

And now they're sharing a bus, because of course they are. Vince would never miss an opportunity to create more drama. Roman slides into the tiny shower stall. He's tired. He's so tired. Coming off the suspension, even more than usual. Even just a few weeks off interrupts the cycle of injury and bounce-back they work so hard to cultivate. He can't imagine what it's like for Seth out there, now. He can see Seth favoring his knee. Just slightly. It's why, in their Triple Threat, he couldn't bear it. He couldn't go after Seth the way Dean did. So what if it makes him weak? He doesn't want the belt any more. He'd be happy with a little more merch selling and a little less crowd booing. 

Dean said goodbye to him after the match, pulling him in for one long, tight hug filled with everything they don't have time to say to each other. When he pulled back, Dean's face had so much searching worry in it Roman had a hard time looking him in the eye. “Don't let him torture you, Roman.” Dean hissed. “You're the strongest man in here. Don't let him fuck with you.” Roman could only nod. Dean was there every long, lonely night since Seth shot him in the back with a steel chair the first time, leaving them for the Authority and leaving him for Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. He doesn't have an ounce of doubt in his mind. The things H muttered to him during their matches, about Seth, how he begged for it, how he cried when he took it. He should have known Roman would go against self-interest over and over, rather than take that taunting. That he would work as hard as he could to keep the title away from that bastard, even though the fans turned on him, even though almost everyone turned on him. And in the WWE, the house always wins. Jimmy and Jae, Dean, Roman's friends in the ring, they're gone. Off to Smackdown, and Roman wishes he could go with them, more than anything. Just let him stand in the background again, let him be their shield. Take the hits for them. 

Because Seth never did beg for you, did he? that terrible small voice inside him says. He can't bear the thought of Seth, his little brother, his brother-in-arms, going willingly to that bed. He can imagine him going without wanting to, oh, yes. Seth would do anything for that, and it made Roman question everything he thought about them, once. But Dean was there to hold him up, brush the hair out of his eyes, tell him he was being a fuckin' moron, that Seth wanted more than what he ever let himself have with Roman, not less. “I saw it. I heard him. He was here because he wanted to be.” Repeated as often as Roman needed to believe it, for months. And when Seth got the title, when he got what he wanted, Roman wanted him to keep it.

Because somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered the crackle of lightning he always felt in Seth's presence, from the very beginning, when this young guy stalked up to him and said, “Let's be a team. You, me, Ambrose. No contest.” That's how it started. The almighty architect just wanted something and went out and got it. Roman was that, once. He coped fine while Seth was out, happy in some ways just to have him out of the way while Roman kept the belt and kept his head above water. He knew Seth would be coming for his title again, and he wanted to be the man who had it. He didn't want Seth to face anyone else his first big match back. Not someone who would go after his leg, because Roman knew he would come back before he should. So he held on as hard as he could to protect his brother the only way he knows how.

And look where it got him. The first suspension of his life, just so he could stay in fighting trim, to be kept in Seth's orbit. 

He stays under the water until it runs cold. Maybe it'll beat some sense into him. Yanks on pajama pants afterwards.

When he finally emerges, the door to the bedroom at the back of the bus is open. Unspoken among the tour bus denizens is the agreement that, married couples traveling together aside, the main eventers take the bed for the night. Roman had been foregoing it during his push, because he didn't want the rest of them to resent him more than they did already, but he's making a bid for it tonight, goddammit. He's hurting, and Seth didn't even try him before he tried to get into bed with the Authority again. They turned him down, which should satisfy Roman, but nothing does. Seth didn't even try to come back. 

It shouldn't really surprise him when he walks into the bedroom, toweling off his hair, and Seth is already there. The belt is in his rolling suitcase, half-covered by a shirt. Seth is standing by the end of the bed, arms crossed. Roman doesn't say anything. His own duffel bag is in the corner, and he grabs the wide-tooth comb he uses for his wet hair, and an elastic. He turns around. Seth is still just standing there, still. Roman wants to put a shirt on, conscious of his belly and his chest hair and everything else. Everything uncovered and untrimmed and real. Because he doesn't have the body, doesn't have anything but his presence, really. Not like the man in front of him. The sight for sore eyes. And all of Roman is sore. “Knee okay?” He just wants a minute for them to be normal.

“The fuck do you care?” Seth spits. “It's great. Better than ever.”

So much for the moment. “Good,” Roman says. “So get your ass out and go sleep on the couch.” He weighs the words after he speaks, realizing that even with everything they were, he's never said them before. He wonders if anything would have been different if he had.

Seth looks taken aback, but he rallies fast. “Like hell.” 

“I don't want to do this right now. You have what you came for, can you be gracious for once in your life?” He nods towards the belt. “I'm tired. I have to do my hair. Can you just...” He flicks his hand at the door, too tired even to play the game. Seth blinks at him, completely nonplussed. Roman sits down on the edge of the bed, facing the mirror on the closet door, and starts combing out his hair. He sees movement behind him in the dark room, and tenses. Seth wouldn't—fighting is strictly prohibited outside the ring, at least when there aren't cameras around—and then a long-fingered hand is closing over the comb. 

“Let me,” Seth says. He kneels on the bed right behind Roman, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “You like it when I do this.” 

Roman's hand opens of its own accord. Seth's eyes are burning and the heat of him against Roman's back is burning, and it's true. Roman used to love it. He'd sit between his legs on the floor, Seth on the couch, and play video games while Seth played with his hair. For hours, sometimes. Nikki and Brie always cooed over them. No one else teased. Maybe it was something about seeing Roman melted, for once, so relaxed he couldn't bring himself to care, zoning out completely. Mile after mile disappearing under Seth's careful hands.

He wants to feel that again. But he'll take an echo of it. He nods.

Some of the lost rigidity goes out of Seth's body, and he shifts to his left, just a little bit. Roman wants to ask him about it, make sure his knee really is okay, but he has no idea what the limits of this peace are. 

Seth begins by separating Roman's hair into sections, twirling each up, one at a time. He used to watch the makeup divas do it, until he learned their tricks. He starts at the ends, and works his way up, one section at a time. Long strokes of the comb, careful not to pull. Roman can predict every motion of his hands. Seth does it the same way each time. 

Neither one of them has forgotten the way it used to make Roman helpless. That's clear in the way Seth is so careful not to get too close. Time was, Seth could take a handful of his hair and move his head anywhere, his whole too-big body following. He remembers so many of these times ending with him stretched out and compliant, hard and wild-eyed from having Seth's attention on him completely, hair spread out on the pillow behind him. 

Tonight, Seth is just tending to him. His hands are jumpy at first. Maybe it makes sense. It's been years since he did this. The sheer amount of time lost is an iron ingot in Roman's belly. Seth isn't looking at him in the mirror, head bowed. Out of character. His own hair is down, shadowing his face. Roman wants to say something, but the fingers in his hair and the teeth of the comb are drawing tingling lines over his skin and down his back. It's arousing on some level, although he's way too exhausted in the wake of the adrenaline leaving his system to get hard without thinking about it first. Small favors. These pants don't hide much. 

Seth works slowly, carefully. Tentative, when he used to act like Roman's body was a playground for his hands. Finally, all of Roman's hair is down, spread over his shoulders in a damp blanket, and Seth can draw the comb from the crown of his head all the way to the ends and meet no resistance at all. He gathers it up, the backs of his knuckles grazing Roman's shoulders. Roman shivers. Tries to tell himself it's the air conditioning making his nipples tight and raising goosebumps all over his skin as Seth lays the whole skein of his hair down his spine and shifts back, hands fallen to his sides.

“Hey,” Roman says. Seth meets his eyes in the mirror. Roman wants to keep the look on Seth's face forever, and he never wants to see it again. Regret and lose, the perfect illustration of everything Roman's felt for two years. Everything he had to set aside to do his job and stay close enough in case Seth ever needed him... That's what he just did, one voice says. Don't let him fuck with you, says another. 

Seth swallows. Brash, opinionated, vivacious when he wants to be, so quiet it's possible to forget he's in a room when he's in the right mood. His edges look softened in the dim light, like he could fade into the background without an anchor. Roman doesn't want that to happen. He makes a move to reach behind him, to put his hand on Seth's calf maybe, and Seth shoves backwards, eyes suddenly frantic. He doesn't say anything. Roman blinks, so horrified he goes blank. Seth, afraid of him outside the ring? He opens his mouth, even though he doesn't know what he can possibly say, but the bus rumbles to life underneath them. He hears, dimly, the guys cheering, down the hall. He can't look away from Seth. And isn't that always the way?

He wants to throw himself into Seth's lap, promise he'll never hurt him, but of course he can't. It's his job to hurt him if the bookers decide it, in this brave new world. He doesn't have Dean right there to keep him grounded. He doesn't have Jimmy and Jae. He's being punished, he knows, by Vince, for failing to win the fans over. He's being shafted by Triple H, who is never satisfied with merely winning. Trips has to make the other guy regret he ever fought in the first place.

For a long time, Seth made him believe, him and Dean both, that against the world they could do anything. That they were the future, fighting for each other alone. Seth's eyes were the stars, and Roman navigated by them as best he could. 

He holds his hands up, palms out, with a determinedly casual slant to his mouth, like what are you worried about? Like what's wrong with you? Like what did he do to you when I wasn't there to protect you? Seth calms down as he watches Roman braid his hair as they feel the bus picking up speed beneath them, like they've done hundreds of times before. Roman doesn't look away from Seth, expanding his chest with each breath. He can see Seth unconsciously matching him in the mirror. Finally, hair tied off, Roman rolls his shoulders.

“You want to sleep?” He asks it as casually as he can. “I want to sleep. Don't much care if I don't have the bed to myself.”

Seth waits a beat to make sure of whatever he thinks he needs to be sure of—and that's a laugh, Seth trying to make sure Roman's motivations are pure—and then he nods, ripping off his shirt and shucking his pants. He sleeps in boxer briefs, so nothing's changed at all. Except he's bigger on top than he used to be, wider and stronger-looking, even though Roman could have told anyone firsthand that the aesthetics of muscle aren't what make Seth impossible to look away from. That's something below the surface, a hurricane trapped under his skin. 

They get under the covers, turning off the lights on the way. Roman on the right, Seth on the left. Maybe some things don't change. The faint pulses of the streetlights through the tiny gaps in the thick blinds. The thrum of the bus changing gears, the way it's quiet enough, but not relaxing. The TV is on out in the living area of the bus, games being played out there. Hell, games are probably being played in here, too. But Roman can't care, not when Seth lies still for maybe two minutes before muttering “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and flopping closer to hook a leg over Roman's thighs and pillow his head on Roman's chest. His left hand steals over and wraps around Roman's right bicep, fingers tightening and loosening. This is familiar. No matter how much Seth liked to dominate him at every opportunity, somehow they always found their way here, to Seth clinging and Roman without a way of acknowledging it, because Seth wouldn't let him. Roman cares a lot less about Seth's ego now. He tangles his fingers in Seth's hair, feeling one long shudder go through him before his breathing finally evens out.

“This is so fucked,” Seth mutters, more grumpy than anything. Roman makes an assenting sound, and goes very still, because...yes. He feels Seth getting hard against his leg. 

“Go to sleep,” he says. “I don't have time for your fucking dick right now.” He wants to wince, both for turning Seth down and how irritated he sounds doing it. It's the farthest thing from what he wants, but the urge not to make himself a complete fool for Seth Rollins shocks him with its strength.

Of all the possibilities in the ever-shifting world, Roman would have bet on Seth shooting out of bed like a suddenly wet cat, or punching him in the face. Not shivering and shoving his diamond dick into Roman's hip. He begged for it, he hears H say, and his hand tightens in Seth's hair. 

“Shh, Seth. It's okay,” he says, not sure, for a change, what's going on in the head of someone he used to know so well.

“It's not,” Seth's almost crying. “I'm such a mess, such a fucking goddamn mess.”

“You were amazing in the ring tonight. They all love that you're back. The guys, the girls, the makeup girls were talking about how happy they are about it.”

“Are you?” Seth asks, voice very small.

“I'd be out on the couch if I wasn't,” Roman says. He makes a fist in Seth's hair, and Seth gasps. Just a little, as his dick pulses. “So,” he continues, “stop grinding me, quiet down, and go to sleep.”

Seth whines, actually fucking whines, and turns his face into Roman's shoulder. 

He's not even surprised when Seth worms a hand between them and rubs one out, soft and quiet, panting into his shoulder. He doesn't, however, let Seth move to wash himself off. Seth is perfectly capable of moving away, but he lets Roman keep him there. When Seth goes for Roman's dick, he grabs Seth's wrist and says “No,” very firmly. Seth stops and immediately curls up to him again.

That's new. It might be the hottest thing that's ever happened, but he'll break his brain trying to figure out what it means. So he closes his eyes and leaves Seth to squirm on him and eventually quiet down. Tomorrow. He'll try to work it out tomorrow.


	2. My Sword and Shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Hope you like it, lovelies.

Monday, July 25th  
Pittsburgh, PA

Roman Reigns’s New Era begins with a jolt as the caravan grinds to a halt at the arena in Pittsburgh around 6am. There’s a heavy, familiar weight on his arm, and he realizes Seth’s using it as a pillow. He doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to remember what year it is. Seth shifts around, shoving his cheek against Roman’s tattooed bicep, and that is so normal to some corner of Roman’s brain, he falls right back asleep.

He wakes up a second time to find Seth clattering around, shoving stuff into his bag like he’s a burglar who just heard a car in the driveway. Roman leans up on one elbow, groaning a little. Seth freezes and stares.

“This didn’t happen,” he says, eyes round and wide and too panicky for this time of the morning. Or any time, unless, maybe, wasps are involved. Seth scoops up his clothes and holds them to his chest. “This didn’t happen.”

Roman glowers at the same time as he yawns, so the effect is probably lost. He stretches, falls back on the bed, the woven cotton blanket sliding down to his stomach. Seth appears to be momentarily distracted, but still on the verge of spontaneously combusting.

“Whatever,” Roman says, rubbing a hand over his face. His reconstructed nose still feels strange to touch, like it doesn’t really belong to him. One way or another, the WWE is good at making a person feel that way. “I’m not going to spread it around you cuddled like a baby with your favorite teddy bear all night long.”

Indignant fury and reluctant amusement slide over Seth’s face in opposite directions, and his stance changes. He arches his back, cocks a hip, juts out his chin. Fight or flirt, the only two responses Seth Rollins has in any given situation. He’s just opening his mouth when someone pounds on the door. “Coffee’s on!” Xavier sings out. “Come on, lovebirds!”

Roman winces, Seth spins, grabs his stuff, and shoves out the door, cursing. Xavier peeks in. “I can’t look. Are you alive?”

“Basically,” Roman says.

“You two figuring your shit out?”

Roman snorts.

“You ever want to talk, you know where I am,” Xavier says. He appointed himself the roster’s unofficial therapist out on the road a while back.

“Thanks, man. I mean it.”

“Uh-huh. There’s new people, get moving.”

Roman nods, and when he’s alone again, he swings his legs out of bed, buries his face in his hands, and promises himself he won’t spend the whole day thinking about Seth. He’ll spend it avoiding him. Much better.

When he does yank on workout pants and a tank top and his boots, wandering out of the bus to find food, he’s greeted by more activity than usual. PAs running around with clipboards, trying to find space on busses. Right. The new people. That’s the extra buzz. He does see Seth in passing, but forces himself not to worry about whatever he’s talking to Luke Gallows about. Seth’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Or rather, he has to, because fuck if he’ll let anyone help him.

The aching in his chest has been replaced by the aches and pains everywhere else, and he’ll probably be fighting tonight. Get him out there, fire the crowd up. It hurts, thinking about how much they despise him.

The talent is supposed to stay out of the way during load-in, although when he was just starting out, Roman helped out when the roadies let him. He likes using his body for something constructive. He wonders what it would be like to go into construction. To build houses. Buildings. Schools, maybe. Follow plans. Make things with his hands. He catches sight of himself in the reflection off an office window, its blinds down, and something about it startles him. Right. He’s smiling a little. That’s what the look on his face is.

A couple hours of work with some of the guys, and he feels a little lighter. Sheamus is telling some story, he never shuts up, but his heart is as big as his mouth when he’s not mugging for the cameras. They spot each other, and he believes the guy when he says he’s sorry about how it went.

The talent always ends up milling around between the locker rooms, makeup, and wherever catering is set up. There’s a lot of buzz today. Always is, when new people show, but the changes in the roster have everyone on edge.

Roman goes right to makeup, snagging some baked goods from catering on the way. The makeup divas are where the magic happens, literally and figuratively. They talk to all the talent, every day. They know everything. They like everyone. Gossip spreads fast in the WWE. It has to, in their traveling show. But the makeup divas actually know what they’re talking about.

“Anyone want breakfast?” he asks, coming into the world of specialized steamer trunks, banquet tables, and the smell of hair spray. They’re just setting up right now. Actually getting people ready won’t happen until later in the afternoon.

“Marry me,” Shana says, making a beeline for him and his baker’s box of treats.

“Your husband scares me,” Roman tells her. “So what’s the deal with the new folks?” he asks, leaning against the painted cinderblock wall.

“I’ll tell you if you let me shave that thing off your face.”

He covers his beard with his hands. “No deal. And I brought you pastries.”

“Fine. If you want to look like a mountain man loner.”

“I do.”

She waves a hand at him, unrolling her endless packages of brushes and combs, hair extensions and rhinestones. It’s like watching a makeup surgeon. “I haven’t actually seen them yet, but I bet they’ll come by soon. I hear good things about all of them. Especially Finn Balor, I got a text saying ‘watch out’ with a whole bunch of heart emoji when I asked the girls working on NXT about him. Apparently he’s a sweetheart. Which doesn’t do you any good, but it’s fun to rub it in your face. I just get to hang out with all of you. No punching required.”

He doesn’t stay very long in makeup after that. It’s starting to fill up, and he kind of wants to be alone. He wonders if she doesn’t have a point on the inside. It’s dawning on him, maybe because of losing Dean, of Seth’s fuckery, of the pressure that led to him getting suspended—maybe he doesn’t really like what he does any more.

Burnout happens to the best of them, he knows. They all handle it in different ways. Jericho travels with his band part of the year. But Roman isn’t the best of them, and he hasn’t been doing it long enough, or smart enough, to have the cushion of cash that would let him even ask for time off. Not that, he’s pretty sure, he’d get it. He’s on the wrong side of a few of the McMahons. Not all of them, which is what makes it so hard. He was half-hoping Shane and Daniel would draft him to SmackDown, but hell. Vince wants him on Raw, so here he stays.

Showtime, though. That always gets him going. The adrenaline. The fear of screwing up, the rush of being with another guy in the ring, both of them working their hearts out. Leaving nothing on the table, time after time. Even with the punishment from the crowd. He never leaves anything out, but they don’t seem to want what he’s selling.

The fireworks going off inside the arena put him in a different headspace, drive him out of his thoughts and into a place where he’s more definite, more sure of himself. What matters is the moment. The cameras are on, there’s no privacy, any conversation you have wandering around the arena during downtime can be flashed up on the big screen and sometimes you don’t know until you find your phone later and your friends from home have blown it up.

Tonight, Mick and Stephanie call them all out. Despite himself, despite everything, he’s proud to be out there with so many people he likes and respects. He walks out second, with Neville in front of him. Back from injury, Neville getting cheers will counter the booing Roman draws. And, he’s nicest guy you want doing terrifying acrobatics at your head. Seth is peacocking it a little bit away, trying to get Roman to look at him. Roman’s just staring straight ahead. Nia and he were talking backstage, that’s probably why Seth wants his attention. He sticks his hands in his pockets, exasperated before the matches start.

That feeling doesn’t go away when Stephanie starts in on him for “screwing it up for all of them.” He just stands there and takes it. It’s what he’s good at.

He sees Finn Balor in person for the first time as Mick announces the Fatal Fourways. Roman doesn’t usually like the bare-chest-with-something-over-it look. Jericho and his scarves leap to mind. But on this guy, the jacket and the plain black trunks work somehow. Maybe it’s the way his hair is a little mussed. Like he was doing something else. Maybe heard someone stealing his bike while he was fucking and pulled his briefs and jacket on to run outside. (Roman doesn’t usually have such sexual thoughts about his co-workers. Except the ones he’s sleeping with. He’s always figured that’s fine.) It works. It fits. Balor isn’t big, but there’s something about him. Finn pops his collar, looks right past Seth. His eyes land on Roman, and his mouth opens. Just slightly. It should be fucking weird, but Roman likes it. Likes that someone wants the fight with him. Roman hasn’t been under any illusions lately. He knows most of his competitors view him as a chore, even though he’s been getting better in the last year.

Roman gets into the four-way like it’s his job. The crowd starts chanting his name, and an almost forgotten baseline begins in his mind, a thrum of wanting to do better, to be better, to win. To see what happens next. Backstage, he hears that the new guy took the win in his own four-way, and the baseline in his head pounds louder. He’s going to face Finn Balor. Someone he’s never fought before, barely even watched.

Backstage, Balor walks up to him. His mouth is open again. Does he ever do something about that? Does anyone else? He’s slinking. He actually licks his lips, and Roman has a hard time staying even.

“Good luck tonight, Roman,” he says. There’s something brewing behind his eyes, and the cameras are on him. So what the hell, Roman plays along. It He has a couple of inches on Balor, but they’re pretty well matched. And Balor has so much going on behind his eyes.

“Good luck to you, man,” Roman says.

“Luck? I don’t need luck,” Balor tells him, and Roman would swear to it that if he had any hair to speak of, Finn, would be tossing it. “I’m Irish. We invented luck.”

So all he wanted to do was score some points off everyone’s favorite punching bag? Roman is disappointed, even though he had no reason to think otherwise. Balor thinks he’s an easy mark. That’s all. So Roman does what any competitor would. He references the last man who beat Balor, who tamed the demon.

“I’m Samoan. ‘Nuff said.” He keeps walking, feeling dejected again.

But when he gets to the ring, the look on Balor’s face makes him rethink. Balor looks hungry, nervous. And Roman can see the outline of his dick in his trunks, framed by that jacket. Balor can’t stop moving, but he keeps looking back to Roman. Chin ducked. Apologetic. Abject. Roman doesn’t know exactly what to do with this. It’s hard to walk to his own corner. It’s hard to step away.

And then the match starts. The first time they make contact it’s electric, for Roman. He can’t stop. He hasn’t wanted this much contact with an opponent in ages. And the guy just stretches into it, lips so dark pink Roman wonders if he’s wearing gloss, but then he sees, they’re bitten red, chapped from living in air conditioning. Dark and perfect, he thinks, as he throws Balor across the ring again. He takes it, overselling, panting, crawling, makes it easy for Roman to advance on him as he cowers, and doesn’t look away from Roman’s eyes.

But Balor won’t stop. Won’t stop fighting, coming back for more. Who is this guy? What does he really want? And—it’s fun. It’s more fun than Roman’s had in forever. In a hold, Balor’s face shoved into his shoulder where the cameras won’t see, he mutters “Welcome to the fight,” and Balor’s whole body shudders against him before the smaller man flings himself away.

It’s joy, bouncing around the ring again, not even caring about the outcome. Roman just wants to prolong this particular inevitable. He feels inside himself for the first time. Like he could reach up and yank the tac vest off just to feel Finn’s burning skin against his own. He can’t keep his hands off Balor’s face, his neck, throwing him around.

Certain things stand out. Getting his boot on Finn’s neck, watching his fingers wrap around Roman’s boot. Listening to him gargle out a plea. Watching Finn sagging off the ropes, and his dick is just so prominent, those trunks hide nothing. Usually it isn’t a problem, Roman doesn’t care, but here? Now? He throws the guy to the mat and immediately wants to cover him, surround him. It’s distracting. Even taking the hits feels good. It’s clean. They have no backstory, no beef, nothing to work out. And Finn looks so pleased with himself when he lands a hit.

This is Finn’s first time on Raw, and Roman gets to be the one he fights. The pain doesn’t matter. Just watching this man expand in confidence, move by move, under the lights, with the crowd screaming. Roman never got this, but he’ll give it without reservation. The man under his hands deserves it. He can tell. Because Finn isn’t going to stop, and he wants the win off Roman, and even if the match wasn’t booked beforehand, Roman thinks—in that wild, adrenaline-fueled way thoughts happen during matches—he thinks he’d give it to him anyway.

He’s getting beat, beat clean, even for how much weight he has on the guy. He has fifty pounds on him, they’re both fighting as hard as they can. Cover after cover, and it’s hard to kick out, to get the shoulder up, when it seems like both of them understand how good it feels to be under the other’s arm.

“Who is this guy?” Roman mutters to himself. But he’s smiling. His lip is bleeding, he’s bruised, he gets Finn up onto his shoulders, they’re all over each other, all over a sudden. Trading holds, arms locked around waists and thighs, and that hunger in Finn’s eyes is only getting louder, brighter, his face is red and after the last reversal, Roman pushes his hands into his hair and laughs. Because he and Finn don’t want to stop fighting because they don’t want to stop touching.

Finn is splayed out, breathing hard. Roman is leaning on one arm, staring at him with half a grin on. He feels proud of this guy. Proprietary, almost. Like Finn’s his fighter, now. Roman’s got his first singles match, his first main event, his first taste. That’s not a small thing in this life. Roman can see the white smear of Finn’s inner thigh, and he wants to put his hand there, slide it up, spread his legs and flatten on his torso. Make him feel every one of the fifty pounds Roman has on him. Tell him he’s doing so well.

Roman rolls forward, slowly. “You ready to finish this?” he asks, in an undertone. Finn nods, rolling away as Roman staggers up to get the finishing sequence set up.

It’s never felt better to be dropkicked in the face.

He keeps his eyes closed for the cover, Finn clinging to his leg with way more force than necessary.

Something happened to them, in that ring. Finn’s going on to the main event at Summer Slam, but it doesn’t matter that Roman isn’t. He doesn’t care about the belt. He doesn’t care much about anything. In the endorphin crash, talking to the announcer, all that matters is what he says.

“I want him again.”

Roman leaves, only looking back once to see Finn taking his adulation as his due. Roman can taste blood, and sweat, and he can feel Finn’s arms gripping him. Those eyes are on his back, and when he turns, he sees Finn looking at him, too. But he looks lost, now. Roman feels the strangest urge to go back to the ring to get him. To feel all that adrenaline, to hold it for the new guy. Because it's different, doing this in front of 18,000 people at a time. Being that good, knowing it worked. He can't, and he doesn't know what to do with any of this, either, so he takes his buzzing self and finds the most out of the way shower he can, and doesn't come out until he's pretty sure he can get back to the bus without being caught by anyone.

He miscalculated. Big fucking surprise.


	3. Grace Under Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his match, Roman runs into an old enemy, and a new friend.

“That was a good match, Roman.” Stephanie McMahon leans against a black Escalade, checking her nails in the dim parking lot light. She looks up at him, all coy. She knows what she’s about to do, and he doesn’t. It’s her favorite moment in life. He liked her, once, before Seth decided the shortcut to fame and fortune was through her good graces.

Seth’s like her. Greedy in the best way. Driven past distraction, living in a world where everything is connected, all feeding into the same story they tell themselves over and over. Ready to roll through anyone who stands in their way.

He crosses his arms. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

“Oh, I did. You looked happier than you’ve been since the Shield broke up. I’m surprised, honestly. I thought Seth coming back would be nice for you.”

Roman feels the world tilting under his feet a little. It only gets worse when she says: “Finn’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?”

He looks down his nose at her. She narrows her eyes.

“My father sees potential in you—for reasons I have yet to understand—so I can’t bury you in the mid-card where we both know you belong. But know this. It’s not a mistake that all your friends are gone. And if you even think about trying to form alliances, I’ll make sure they get taken out of the equation, too. There is no Shield 2.0 here for you. Do you understand? You’re on your own.”

“Why?”

He can’t help himself. He’s too exposed, and he knows it, but she’s ahead of him yet again. Taking something he didn’t even know he wanted. There wasn’t time to formulate the thought that he’d like to wrestle on the same team as Finn before she took it away.

She grins. It’s so charming. Pleased. And edged with razorblades.

“You distract Seth. If you’re isolated, he’ll focus on what’s really important. If he knows you’re off-limits to everyone, he won’t waste time thinking about you.”

“That’s seriously fucked up.” _And if you think it’ll work, you’re not paying enough attention to him_. Roman knows his… Seth. He knows Seth. And yes, Seth did pay attention to what the Authority wanted right after the Shield broke up, but he’s eager to please. And at that point, he wanted what they wanted. Without overstating his importance to the formerly bleached wonder,Roman and Dean had each other back then, too. Seth always talked like Dean and Roman didn’t need him, that they would be fine without him. Moreso once the Authority started getting their hooks into him. Roman should have seen it. Should have realized the distance was artificial. Done something about it…

“It’s business,” Stephanie says, bringing him back to earth. “That Shield Triple Threat was idiotic. You don’t want to hurt him, and that’s cute, but Dean wants to hurt him too much. Dean had to go.”

“You’re just going to jerk him around again.” Roman’s head hurts, trying to sort through all of this. He thinks of himself as a straightforward guy. It’s the worst kind of blindness, thinking everyone is like you. “He’s too good for your bullshit. He doesn’t need you.”

“He doesn’t know that. And he’s certainly happy to be back. In fact,” she checks her watch, “he’s going to be showing us how much in a little while, so I’d better get back.”

His disgust is overwhelming as she gets into the car, and he doesn’t even know who it’s directed at. At Seth for lying in his arms all night and then racing to Steph and Trips the next day? Did Seth think Roman is rejecting him, is that why he’s going back to them?

Steph rolls down her car window. “Remember, Roman. No tag teams for you that management doesn’t approve. No run-ins. It won’t go well for you, your new friends, or your old ones.”

He stares after her, breathing in the engine exhaust until it makes him cough.

The atmosphere in the bus is doleful, although he gets congratulated on his match very sincerely.

“New guy’s bunking,” Kofi says. “And, uh…”

“Let me guess. Rollins grabbed his stuff and strutted out like he has someplace better to be?”

Kofi and Big E share a look before Kofi nods. “That’s about it. He was dawdling around a little, but there was a car waiting for him. Looked almost like he was waiting for you, if you know what I mean. ”

Roman shrugs a shoulder. “If that’s how he wants to play.” Now that he knows what to look for, he realizes it was an open secret, Seth’s affair with Trips and Steph. They must have all been keeping it from him. He remembers the support, quiet but ironclad, after all his matches with Trips, and wonders if they were doing what they could for him, after all. If the lack of energy in his matches with his fellow fighters hadn’t been because they were bored with him, but because they were going just a little easy.

They have a strange language for expressing sorrow, but it’s there. For a death in the family, the fight of your life. For a broken heart, you go easy. 

“Are you okay with that?” Big E shifts over to make room for him on the couch, but Roman shakes his head.

“I’m cool. Look…” He shoves a hand through his hair. It catches on a knot, and he winces. “Last night? His idea. Like most of Seth’s ideas, it was unnecessarily complicated and probably ends with me taking a hit from a chair at some point.”

“But you’re not bitter,” Big E puts in. Roman grunts, but the corner of his mouth lifts.

“I can’t change him. Guess it would be nice if he hadn’t gotten all cozy last night if all he wanted was to cuddle and run.”

“I hear you,” Kofi says. “Disappointing, though. You two were solid.”

“Guess not. And that was years ago, now, you carrying a torch that bad?”

“Doodled your initials inside a heart on the back cover of my Lisa Frank notebook.”

“Ouch.” Big E covers his heart with one hand. “His love is pure.”

Roman waves at them as he walks off, grinning a little. At this rate, he’ll be thrilled to be off the main event for a while, even if it means being in one of the bunks. The bunks aren’t so bad. It’s harder to be ambushed by ex-lovers in them. Although Seth would probably find a way if he really wanted.

He spreads out under the blankets, stretching his fingers and toes as far as they’ll go. His feet hang off the end and his hands are over the sides, but that’s an occupational hazard, being the size he is. He trails his fingers over his belly. The sensation of Finn’s arm—his whole torso, really—wrapped around Roman’s leg comes back to him in a warm rush. He slides his hand down so its warm weight is on his thigh. Pretends it’s Finn’s hand. Or his cheek. Roman doesn’t get off to that so much, never has. He doesn’t have specific fantasies of power or a lack of power. He likes being touched, which in his experience involves submission, so he does. People touch him when they feel like he can’t react. When his big, heavy body is stable and restrained. When he doesn’t need to ask, because they’ve been waiting for an excuse to knead and stroke and twist.

But it works, with Finn. Maybe because he’s not such a big guy. Smaller than Dean. Smaller than Seth. Narrow. He’d fit in the curve of Roman’s body, Roman can imagine him pressing back, getting comfortable without an ounce of tension, or shame. Yanking the covers up to his chin, swatting at Roman if he tried to move.

There are muffled voices outside, but he doesn’t pay attention. He’s wondering what short hair would feel like on his neck. Those dark pink lips. Eyes burning in the deceptively sweet face. Or maybe for Finn it’s the violence that’s the lie. He wants something more than the fight. They all do, they all have to. It’s the only reason you stay on the road. Some of them, they do it because their fathers and mothers did it, because this is the kind of life that makes sense. For some they want to fight their demons and this is as close as they can get.

He wonders what it’s like for Finn. Roman fights because of the people. Some he likes and some he doesn’t, but they’re all incredible. He fights because he likes the feel of being in the ring, with an objective and a path and an opponent. All the tools he needs to do the job and become a legend. To be remembered like he remembers the ones who came before. To hold his head up when he goes home.

The door opens, and it’s the knowing underneath the world that tells him, before he looks up, that Finn’s lurking in the doorway. His feet are planted, he’s filling the space as best his can, but he’s still lurking. There’s something twining around him, caught underneath the popped collar of his t-shirt. Stuck in his open-again mouth. Smoke behind his irises.

Roman struggles to his elbows. The mood in the bus has picked up, he can hear them, apparently Sheamus is up in front and Xavier is back from his call home, so they’re all settling in. The noise—Finn was adding to it a minute ago, but he’s gone quiet.

“I’ll take that luck now, if you’re still offerin’.” Finn’s voice lilts over the words, rough like the toe of a boot on a sidewalk.

“Depends on what you want to do with it.” Roman licks his lips, the fastest he’s ever developed a pavlovian response. Finn sees it. Leans a little bit farther into the room.

“Whatever you want,” he breathes. “Mean it, whatever, I’ll do it. Just want you.”

If that isn’t designed to go right to his head, Roman doesn’t know what is. He distrusts it, but Finn is practically melting onto the floor.

“You always come on this fast?”

“Don’t usually need to,” Finn says. Something about that doesn’t make sense either, but—“You’re an emergency situation, Roman Reigns. Have to get me bid in early.”

“I’m not exactly a hot commodity.”

“You’d be surprised.” A burst of laughter from behind him makes Finn flinch, and Roman sees for the first time just how on edge he really is. He’s white-knuckling the doorknob, and his neck is tight. Roman doesn’t like seeing him like that, but he thinks he understands why. It’s the night of his first fight on Raw. He’s wound up. He’s not the only one.

“Come on,” he says. “I’m not going for a rematch in here.”

The bus rumbles to life as Finn throws himself across the room, the door closing behind him. Finn lands on his knees at the foot of the bed, forearms tensed where they lean on the mattress. “I mean it. Anything you want.”

Roman doesn’t usually get off on this. Not like Seth, or Dean—but they aren’t here. No one to see him, except Finn. So he sits up, self-conscious of his belly, but Finn just stares and works his jaw like he’s swallowing, and his eyes are glazed when he looks up again. Roman feels like an idiot as he reaches out and grips Finn’s chin in his hand and mutters, “You gonna do what I say? Be good for me, little boy?” It just slips out, because Finn is so much smaller than what he’s used to, he can remember the feel of him in his arms, he’s not a small guy, and Roman is ready to take a fist to the jaw.

Finn feels differently, it seems, because he groans—not quietly. “Promise…” A light goes on and he sits back on his heels. “Mind if I call you Daddy?”

Roman stares.

“It fits,” Finn says. “Just tell me if not, it’s fine. But it fits.”

“Yeah.” Roman’s voice is like two rocks grinding together. He coughs. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thought that was your job tonight.” Finn grins, a giant, unexpected expression so arresting Roman suddenly wants to order him out of the bedroom and never be alone with him again. He doesn’t. He just raises an eyebrow and watches Finn start to squirm at his feet. He knows how that feels.

“Daddy had other plans.”

It’s easy to pretend. Finn wants him to, if the way his breath catches and he weaves forward is any indication. And Finn should, given how he’s the one who set this all up in a spare couple of sentences.

“An’ what might those be?” He inches closer, looking from the bulge in Roman’s sweats to his face and back again. _It’s all right,_ Roman thinks. _Settle down. I know what you want. Not my first rodeo._

“Show me what that mouth of yours can do.”

Finn lunges for his waistband, but Roman holds him up. Blocks him with a hand, pinches his lower lip. “On my fingers. And maybe, if you’re good, I’ll give you my dick.”

Finn blinks, taken aback for a second, and Roman is almost going to call it off, doesn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable…and oh. Finn doesn’t tease. Just takes two of Roman’s fingers into his mouth and starts sucking them down like his life depends on it. “So thick,” he slurs, pulling off to lick Roman’s palm. “S’gon’ feel so good in me, please, Daddy.” Then he’s got three of them in his mouth, and Roman is getting harder than he thought he could, with how tired he was just a few minutes ago. It's still there at the edges of his consciousness, and he wants to make this quick. Figures it's what Finn wants to do after a match, wonders how many of his opponents have had him like this. Feels like he wants to know, and wants to be better than all of them, for one wild minute. Finn is looking at him like he already is, and maybe that's enough. Maybe that'll do him for now.


	4. My Wall of Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly smut, some exposition. Not even a little bit sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, but this update is comparatively long. I hope you enjoy it! I run on enthusiasm, so don't be shy!

Roman respects the power of a first time. He feels it in the stretch of his muscles over an unfamiliar body. In the way he tries to be as quiet as possible so he won’t miss a hitch in their breathing or a tiny sound that tells him the story of where he needs to go next. He can understand a person in that time, as they get to know each other, for however long it lasts. Roman’s a realist, but he likes things to last.

Finn is clearly testing him out. Trying him. It should feel like shit, especially with the way Finn is moaning _Daddy_ around his fingers. On the other hand, Roman’s always had a thing for shamelessness. He rolls with it, putting his hands on his shoulders when Finn starts trying to get on the bed, keeping him down. Finn just groans and pulls his mouth off Roman’s hand so he can rub his cheek against Roman’s dick. Doesn’t bother to wipe his face, just lets Roman see it shiny, lips red and swollen from working on his fingers. He’s this mix of pushy and tentative, like Finn wants it to be six months from now when they already have this stuff worked out, when he knows he can get what he needs. But Roman respects the power of a first time.

He gets hands on Finn’s ribcage, just under his armpits, and pulls him up. Finn ends up straddling one of his thick thighs, biting his lip and shifting around. He balances like Roman’s leg is the turnbuckle, struggling to keep his eyes open. Roman pulls him closer, one arm around Finn’s waist, the other hand straying to the back of Finn’s neck, and now he’s not sure what to do. Finn tips his head back, rolls it against Roman’s hand. He’s squirming, writhing around, rolling his shoulders, hissing from so little contact. Roman isn’t _that_ good.

“What’s your deal?” He squeezes Finn’s waist hard enough to leave fingertip marks in his skin. “What do you need?”

Finn groans. “S’complicated.” He leans closer, stroking Roman’s face, devouring every inch of it with his eyes. The way he moves is distracting, like he’s being driven by something under his skin turning him sinuous and almost unnatural, but Roman stays focused.

“Tell Daddy.” His voice is rough, because he feels like an idiot, but he has certain suspicions about Finn Balor. They’re proven right when Finn lets out a pained noise and shoves his forehead into Roman’s shoulder. He holds Finn tighter, and Finn’s hands slide down his arms.

“You’re not gonna send me away?” He traces some of the lines in Roman’s tattoo. His face is flushed, he’s still shifting like he can’t help himself, but fear makes his shoulders round and Roman officially has no idea what’s going on. It’s a weird thing for Finn to say.

Roman gathers him closer. “You’re here as long as you want to be.” Finn goes quiet, and when Roman looks up from the contrast of his hand and Finn’s old t-shirt, he finds Finn watching his face.

“You mean it.” There’s a burr in the words, harsh beneath his usual lilt. The charge in the air grows until it feels like static is rippling all along his skin. Finn straightens up, balanced perfectly on Roman’s thigh, ankles hooked over each other in front of his shin. That abyss in his eyes expands, and Finn tightens his grip on Roman’s arms. He’s searching for something. Roman just lifts his chin and lets him look.

Ever since he was a child, he feels like a mountain. He can’t explain it very well. But it’s why he can take the punishment of the ring. The punishment outside the ring. He watches _Doctor Who_ with Xavier and grins at the TARDIS, because he’s bigger on the inside, too. He’s an island where other people wash up. He doesn’t have hidden depths. Only heights to scale. He learned once that there isn’t any such thing as a truly dormant volcano. Just one that hasn’t erupted in a long time.

He nods.

Finn leans to him. His lips are soft and hot on Roman’s cheek. Spreading lava across his mouth. Licking fire. Roman yanks him closer. Finn slots in perfectly to him, arms winding around his neck. Roman strokes up and down the lean, muscled back, revelling in it. So different from trying to settle a jittery, fractious body into feeling good. Finn just molds to him, all muffled groans and hanging on for dear life, winding his fingers into Roman’s hair. He doesn’t pull. It makes Roman shudder, the feeling that nothing Finn does is meant to hurt him, or even tease. Finn just _wants_. Finn just wants _him_.

It feels like they kiss for hours. Long, slow kisses that go nowhere because they’ve arrived already. Roman keeps Finn on his lap until the panicky edge to Finn’s breathing eases. He slides his hand between their bodies, aiming to talk him through a handjob.

Finn catches his wrist, looking sheepish. He doesn’t look so“Can we talk?”

Roman hauls Finn up the bed, which seems to surprise him. Maybe he thought Roman was going to kick him out. They settle in at the head of the bed, Finn lying next to him, running his fingers in circles over Roman’s belly and sides. It’s so gentle, sends slow coils of arousal all over him.

“So… you know my ring thing is I turn into a demon, yeah?”

Roman nods again. He doesn’t want to talk. Just wants to stroke through Finn’s short hair and listen. Finn works his thighs under Roman’s knees, so they’re locked together. Roman feels him take a deep breath.

“It’s not… just a ring thing.” He looks up at Roman, a wince in progress on his face. Roman just tilts his head and raises his eyebrows. He motions with his hand. Come on. Spill.

“I was fourteen years old. There was this abandoned church—a ruin—a few miles away from my house. You know how kids are, we went all over it. Dared each other to climb all over, to go into the crypt, stuff like that. So my friend thinks it’d be funny to dare me to sleep the night there one night in winter. I said sure, because I was a fuckin’ idiot.

“It wasn’t so bad at first, but it got cold, and I started thinkin’ if I should go back, or hell, just go back to me own house, he’d never know the difference. But then I heard a noise down in the crypt, and I thought he was fuckin’ with me, because that’s what friends do.” He takes another deep breath, lets it out. “It wasn’t him. And I wasn’t cold after it happened, either. Never been cold since, as it happens.” His hand curls into a fist on Roman’s stomach.

“Thing is, the church was abandoned for a reason.”

Finn’s head is bowed, cheek against his chest. His body is a knot. The skin at the nape of his neck is lightly freckled, and Roman runs his thumb along it. Finn starts, meeting his gaze. His eyes are just clear blue-gray, the pinpricks of fire are banked for the moment. The air is tense. Something in the room is rippling. Waiting for Finn to speak again. Roman knows how it feels.

“You hear the tales. You don’t believe them, because who would? Lost demons, just lookin’ for a home. It’s fantastic. Like enchanted castles and fairies. He used to take peopke up, live in them long as he could, eat them when he couldn’t any more. But me…” Finn presses his forehead to Roman’s ribcage. “You must think I’m out of my mind.”

Roman grips the back of his neck tighter. “I don’t.” The third presence goes taut, Roman would swear it’s paying attention. “Felt it in the ring. It’s you and it’s not you.”

Finn draws away from him. That gap is back in his eyes, his shoulders are straight, he’s burning again. The whole room is burning. Roman waits. Finn moves in that uncanny way again. Bites his lips, forces it down. Sits cross-legged and talks.

He talks about feeling the demon, the power of it, and the rage. The blackouts. Finding himself in the wrestling ring and realizing how much the demon liked it, even when the demon wasn’t out.

Roman listens while Finn talks about control, about how the demon used to draw all over Finn’s body with Sharpies while Finn was asleep, trying to tell him things in harsh, disjointed concepts. “I sort of… consciously decide to let him out. But it’s harder to control him then, to convince him to go back inside. Over half me life with him inside.” Finn is older than he is. Roman doesn’t know why that turns him on a little.

“He likes wrestling, thank Christ. The paint is part of it, too. Part meditation and part signal, almost. As the paint wears away, he’s got to come back inside, let more of me out, I guess. We don’t really…talk, much. It’s one or the other, mostly. We sort of… pass each other in a dark hallway. He protects me. If he’s easier to control, I know he likes what’s going on. He’s got me out of a bad spot or two, got me to sidestep some bad people. But it’s also ‘cause I’m his home. I change him as much as he changes me. He likes seeing the world now, likes tasting new people.”

As Finn talks, his hands and arms twitch in strange ways. He doesn’t react to it, and Roman isn’t sure he realizes. There’s a double image surrounding Finn, a halo made of shimmering black and blue fire, the impression of endless red eyes, a mouth gaping wide, filled with long, long fangs. Staring at him.

“The demon likes you,” said like it’s a confession. “I like you. He was… more under control than he’s been in months during my fight with you. I think you calm him down. It took a load off me, right enough, let me tell you.”

Some feeling sours in Roman’s belly, making him want to curl in on himself. He’s taken so many hits lately. This felt like something just for him, and maybe it’s not. He should have known. “So you came in here…trying to take the edge off?”

“No! I am—I do—” Finn leans forward and puts a hand on Roman’s thigh, fierce in his regard. He can see it’s not enough, and the lithe body uses all that unnatural speed and motion to straddle Roman’s hips, pull him up so they’re face to face. The muscles in Finn’s arms stand out as he grips Roman’s shoulders. “It’s… hard. To get what I want. When there’s a demon inside me with his own—” _twitch_ “—opinions about who gets to call the shots.”

“But you think I can.”

“I think you already are.”

Silence falls. Roman can feel the exhaustion catching up to him, finally overwhelming the adrenaline of the ring and the barometric pressure in the little back bedroom of a moving tour bus.

“I want you,” Finn brushes a lock of hair behind Roman’s ear. It’s so intimate—like the grin before, it makes Roman want to fling Finn away. “I want a place next to you whenever I feel like it. I want to sleep next to you. I want you to count on me. I want you to be my daddy, give it up whenever you crook your fingers because that’s what I like. What I need. And yeah, is some of it because there’s a fuckin’ demon in my skin who likes bein’ close to you? ‘Course.”

“You don’t waste time.” Roman manages to grind the words out before his brain comes to a complete halt.

“I can’t,” Finn whispers, looking, suddenly, lost and small and alone. “Wanted you since the first time I saw you. Watched them hate you. Then I met you, felt fit to explode. Want you all to myself. Emergency situation, that.”

Finn is sincere, and intense, and Roman feels surrounded by the crushing darkness hovering around Finn, suffusing him. But Roman is a mountain, so Roman doesn’t mind. What does a mountain have to fear from a slipping, twitching, lonely creature, looking for somewhere warm to sleep? Roman has lava inside him.

“It’s gonna take me a while to catch up,” Roman warns him. “You’ve got this whole thing going, and… I don’t.So can we just say for the moment that you’re a fuckin’ hot piece who came on strong while I’m in an..." a phrase Xavier uses occasionally pops into his head, "emotionally vulnerable place?”

“As long as we both know that isn’t all.” Finn rubs his scruffy cheek against Roman’s, like a particularly docile tiger. “When it’s you an’ me, it’s you an’ me. I don’t like sharing. Well…” he rolls his head on his neck. “I don’ mind, but he’s none so fond of it. But he’s pretty out of sight, out of mind about things, if you know what I mean.”

“So when we’re on the road together, we’re…this. And when we’re apart…”

“I’ll miss me Daddy, but idle hands do the demon’s work.” Finn smirks.

“Puns.” Roman is too tired to muster a glare. “All this. And puns.”

Finn shoves him down to the mattress. “Lucky you, it’s not all I know how to do with me mouth.” He slips down before Roman can form a response. “So tired,” Finn murmurs, against the hardening bulge in Roman’s pants. “Be so good to my tired Daddy, just let… let me…”

Roman nods, shoving the side of his hand into his mouth when Finn takes his cock all the way on the first slide. Finn sucks it out of him fast, licking all over his balls, burying his face in Roman’s inner thighs. It’s so wet, his cock so slippery against Finn’s tongue, he can’t help the hoarse, quiet noises he’s making. Finn has a grip on each side of his waist, low down, the belly Roman can’t help, the fingers digging into it making him wonder why he tries. When Finn finally gets what he wants—a load of come down his throat that has him grinding the bed and groaning—he just stays there. Roman’s dick softening in his mouth. He licks it gently, not pulling off until Roman yanks him up. He looks fucked out, content, lips hot pink and swollen. He drapes over Roman’s side, boneless and whimpering quietly. Roman goes for his dick again, exhausted as he is, and Finn makes a complaining noise.

“Just wan’ please you, Daddy.”

“This will,” Roman whispers. He works Finn over until he comes. Gets Finn to lick it off his hand. Falls asleep with his index and middle fingers still in that hot, slick mouth, Finn holding on to his wrist.

 

The only way to describe the next week of Roman’s life is “sex haze.” He’s not sure where the promotion is, or what matches he fights. He knows when he showers, because Finn is usually there, too. He knows when he sleeps, because there’s a furnace in the bunk with him. They shouldn’t be able to fit. But they do. He should be dead on his feet from all the fucking, but he’s energized instead.

Certain things stand out. The first time he wrecks Finn’s ass, pinning his shoulders down with a heavy arm across them, pounding him until Finn is screaming and grinding his hips up, looking for the impossible more. Roman fucks him like he’s the one with the demon inside. The way Finn looks at him afterwards, with stars on fire in his eyes, arms and legs wrapped around him. The first time Finn blew him in the shower of a mediocre hotel, rubbing his prostate, using shower gel for lube. How most mornings that’s how Finn wants to start Roman’s day.

How Roman just has to whisper in his ear and two minutes later Finn is bent over, or on his knees, or grinding on Roman’s dick. He really is that desperate and easy, and Roman’s always had a thing for shameless. He knows the demon has something to do with it. With how much Finn likes being controlled, pinned, ordered around, called good, called little. They go from zero to six thousand in hours. It’s all play, it’s incredibly serious. It’s all-consuming. Roman doesn’t know how to do what Finn wants, but Finn just bites his chest and tells him it’s not about _doing_. It’s about how Roman _is_. Every time Roman feels himself stretch to accomodate some new fucking idea Finn’s had, some possibly sick fantasy Roman wrings out of him with his fingers and crooned promises that he’ll still be Daddy’s, it feels like coming home and dropping his bags.

Finn fits right in to the promotion, too. The girls all love him, and he can be found, often as not, in a pile of Diva. He’s a little older than most of them, more seasoned, easy with advice and quick to do practice bouts. Roman spends time in the gym when they’re apart. Pushing himself. He hangs out with the other guys more. They accept him back like he was never gone, with a relief that makes him realize just how apart he was holding himself. How brittle he had become. His text conversation with Dean becomes less about how worried about him Dean is and more about things that are going on. Updates from Smackdown. Complaints about management. What else is new.

Seth is also suspiciously absent when he’s not actually in the ring. Roman’s pretty sure Stephanie doesn’t want to let her new-old favorite toy out of her sight for a bit. It’s also a fair bet that Seth’s been warned off Roman, although probably a bit more nicely than Steph warned him. It’s hard to feel that bitter, in the rush of Finn’s blinding obsession and affection. Roman returns it. More and more every day.

The other wrestlers don’t bat an eyelash at Roman and Finn’s very public relationship. Sheamus blushes bright red whenever Finn calls Roman “Daddy” in front of him, so Finn’s taken to doing it more. Nothing stays secret on the road. Sheamus and Cesaro can bicker all they want, but their bizarre romance isn’t fooling anyone. None of the unspoken rules they’ve all lived by for years seem to apply to Finn. He ends up everywhere. He and Sami pore over the new LEGO catalog while Kevin and Roman just watch. “This feels weird,” Roman eventually says. “Yeah,” Kevin shudders, “like we’re babysitting. Let’s go, uh, play video games or something.” “Yeah.”

And then it comes. Word from the writers. Seth and Finn, ramp up to Summer Slam. Roman grinds his teeth. Finn just laughs.

Today’s Raw is the first time Seth and Finn are set to be in the ring together, and Roman would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried. It’s just supposed to be a promo segment, but Seth’s gone off-script before. Usually not unless he knows he has the Authority behind him for sure, and right now, for all that he’s in their bed every night, Roman isn’t sure they are.

“It makes sense. I’m the new guy, I’m wildly popular, and Seth’s got his own skin to look after. We’re gonna do a good show.” A twitch in his shoulders. Finn doesn’t bother to hide it around Roman any more. “Besides, the demon’s got some scores to settle with Mr. Rollins.” Roman learned very quickly that the demon is possessive of him, that Finn and the demon fight each other’s battles, and both of them want to fight Roman’s. It’s a little humbling, and a lot fucking weird. “I’ll be careful, Daddy,” Finn promises, crawling between Roman’s legs on the couch in the tour bus, face in his neck. There’s a little bit of a tease in his voice. “Know what I’m doing. Older than you, aren’t I?”

Roman raises an eyebrow, puts a hand on Finn’s throat and just keeps him there, head against Roman’s heartbeat. “He fights dirty” he says, finally. “He wants to get you so mad you forget what you’re there for.”

“Hey.” Finn braces a hand in the middle of Roman’s chest to look him in the eye. Roman’s hand feels like a dead weight on his neck. “Don’t do this. I don’t need your help to beat him, and you don’t need the guilt for betraying him.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re not a good liar. And you’re not good at being disloyal.” Finn bends his head, kisses Roman’s collarbones. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Frustration congeals in Roman’s chest, pounding alongside his heart. Finn can take care of himself, can walk the long miles and keep his demon under control. But Seth might lash out. Finn is used to opponents who have their heads together. He might be unprepared for the hurricane of grandstanding and bad ideas coming at him. “Feels disloyal not to warn you. Not to… protect you.” He swears if Finn had enough hair he’d be tossing it. As it is he preens, hips grinding down against Roman’s. “Especially from Seth.”

“You don’t think I’ll be having everything these fuckers want to tell me on a silver platter?” Finn’s grin is all over his face. “They’re dying to help out. Gonna make the rounds tomorrow, when everyone’s worked up.” lowers himself down again, mouth brushing Roman lips as he talks. “Not from you. It’s too much. You’re not in the middle of this.”

“You shouldn’t let me off the hook like this,” Roman mutters.

“Roman.” Finn straightens up, although he’s still grinding down, very gently. It matches his voice. “What I need from you is to remember my own name when I walk out there. All the screaming makes it hard to concentrate.” He licks his lips. “Make me do some screaming of my own. It’s not about anyone else. Just you and me. Too soon to worry about anything else.” His jaw tenses. “Been fucking for a week, mate. Not gonna hold it over your head.”

Roman hates that look in Finn’s eyes. Hates that he’s holding himself so cheap. Pragmatic, easy-going, good-tempered Finn, sometimes that works against him. Roman sits up, puts some of his strength to work, manhandles Finn across his lap before the smaller man can do more than squawk about it, talks in the only language he knows they’ll both understand as he slides one of his big hands under the waistband of Finn’s sweats. Because a week isn’t such a long time. Not nearly enough.

“What did you call me?”

 

Finn heads to the ring that night completely focused. The crowds might as well not exist, the chanting and the noise washing over him. The demon purrs in his chest, vibrating along his spine. His ass is hot and sore under the briefs. He knows he must be bruised up something fierce. He hasn’t seen it, but he could tell from the look on his daddy’s face when Roman let him up, spent and nearly crying. Roman shoved him down to suck his own come off the couch (per Finn’s murmured narration of a frequent fantasy, the night before) and Finn hadn’t had time for anything after that but drooling all over Daddy’s cock until it was time to go to makeup.

He rolls his shoulders back, aiming at not coming across as a moonstruck puppy on international television. Harder than it seems when you’re fucking Roman Reigns, with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior and the best smile in the universe. And all right, Finn likes infatuation, and he likes good sex, and he likes having both those things at arm’s length all the time (he and AJ wouldn’t have lasted so long if not for that—and maybe he’s a little bit grateful he came in after the draft, because it cuts down on some awkwardness) but Roman’s something special. Even by Finn’s standards. Even by the demon’s standards. It’s hard not to be dreamy under these conditions.

He’s got a mic in his hand in a WWE ring. He’s got the crowds. And in his face, he has Seth Rollins.

Seth’s a looker, he has to give the man that. He fills out those idiotic spandex trousers just the way he wants to. His voice is grating, though, and while Finn doesn’t make a point of judging people based on their sexual preferences or relationship choices, he has a fair amount of contempt for Seth giving up on Roman.

“Everything you have,” Seth taunts him, “I’ve had first. Everything you did. _I did first_.” The heat and the snarl give Finn a pretty good idea of what Seth means. He wants to laugh in Seth’s smug face, because he knows things. The demon uncurls, rising up on its haunches in the back of Finn’s mind. The demon doesn’t like Seth. Seth grates. All static electricity waiting for a spark. Seth tries to be both, but he’s not that good.

And Finn tells him so.

 _You had it so good, boy-o,_ Finn thinks, as he spits the lines the writers have given him. _But you didn’t know. Didn’t even know what you had._ _But I do. His heart’s not so broken anymore, and I’m going to keep it. Not you._


End file.
